Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Do you have a nickname or what do your friends
call you?I’ve been called all kinds of things. Nothing that’s really stuck
though.Well, with a cool last name like “Powers”
there’s not a lot of room for improvement.I’ll grant you that. Interestingly, when they gave me my grandfather’s
middle name instead of his first, I narrowly avoided becoming the original
Austin Powers.That would’ve been shagadelic baby!I mean, an unfortunate coincidence.

Birthplace / Current hometown:Fredericton, NB to both. I’ve actually come full circle, in a way:
I’ve spent the last fifteen years living in the house I spent the first four
years of my life in.

Favorite city and why?I’ve drifted around a little bit, but rarely very far, and I always
come back. It’s a great area in so many ways. It’ll always be home.

Birthday / Age:September 24th. I’ll be 44 this year.

How would you describe yourself physically?Large, hairy, and unintentionally intimidating.So, like a friendly bigfoot.
That’s about right. One of my sister’s friends likes to claim there are several
sightings of me, but few clear photos.

How would someone else describe you
physically?I’ve been described as a big, scary biker or Viking. The awful truth is that I’m just a big teddy
bear, for the most part.

The first thing people notice about you is…Probably my hair. There’s a lot
of it, even after a recent shearing during which I shed probably six or eight
inches of it.

Religion, if any?I guess you could call me a non-practicing Christian.

Are you superstitious? Any phobias?I’m superstitious to a point, but I certainly don’t go to ridiculous
extremes. For example, I’m a big hockey fan. I spent about a year in a couple
of sports writing gigs, in fact. Anyway, at one point early this season I
decided to spend an evening hanging out with my better half instead of catching
the game on TV or online, whatever. They won decisively, so we had a sort of
running joke all year that whenever the Islanders played I had to be with her,
and pay no attention to the game until it was over. It worked often enough that
we’ve had some fun with it. But realistically, if they’d lost that night, you
can bet I wouldn’t have insisted we avoid each other on game days.

Do you smoke/drink? If so, what? Any
bad habits?Yes to both (update: I’m nearly two weeks smoke free as of mid-June). I’ve
always been a whiskey man, Canadian Club being the perennial favorite, though
in recent years my consumption has flagged considerably. Considering my once
near-heroic capacity for the stuff, that’s probably not a terrible thing.
As for other bad habits: I’m a bit reactionary sometimes; I hear myself saying
things before I’ve really had a chance to think them over. This occasionally
has unpleasant results. Conversely, I also tend to overthink and overanalyze,
which can make things a lot more difficult than they need to be.The first time I got drunk, it was on a
bottle of something I think was called “Canadian Rare”.I had a friend whose father owned a bunch of
properties and when the tenants left without notice, he’d keep their
liquor.He had a case of 48 different
bottles of alcohol locked in the attic, but we were teenagers, so a lock isn’t
much of an obstacle.We took a shot from
each bottle to try them out and them we each picked a favorite.I’m French-Canadian by descent, so I stuck
with the Canadian Rare and put down two 50/50 whiskey/root beers before the
alcohol caught up with me.I ended up
puking in the sink because my friend locked himself in the bathroom and I was
drunk for about a day and a half.But,
whatever doesn’t kill you…That sounds like it might be R & R (Rich & Rare) Canadian Whiskey. Dandy stuff, that. Hell of a way to launch an alcohol-fueled
lifestyle. Kudos to your friend’s dad
for his enterprising nature. My first
go-around was a godawful substance called Five Star. Today that’s the name of a whiskey, but back
then it was rum. I think it cost about
eight cents a bottle, and worth every penny. The after effects of Five Star and Sprite
added the term “Five-Star Flu” to the vernacular of my little group.

Current occupation / Dream job:I’m currently an aquaculture technician, which I’ll delve into more
later. The dream, of course, is to chuck the day job and write for a living.
Ideally towering best sellers, one after another, with fat royalty cheques
arriving like clockwork.

What do you like to do when you’re not at
work?When I leave the office, I leave whatever I was working on back there.
I’m not the type to bring it home with me, obsessing and agonizing over stuff
during my downtime. I spend a lot of time with Marsha and her daughter, doing
anything or nothing together. Just enjoying the time we have, and being
grateful for how much of it I get. Late nights are when I do most of my
writing. Thoughts and ideas come to me whenever they come, but I carry a little
recording device with me everywhere or I jot them down, and it’s only after the
lights go down and the rest of my world is asleep that I try to piece it all
together.
That’s really my whole world in a nut’s shell these days. And I’m pretty lucky,
when I stop to think about it – which is often: I get to spend virtually all my
free time doing the things that I love to do the most.

What is your zombie outbreak survival plan?I live in a pretty sparsely populated part of the world, that’s
uncomfortably cold nearly half the year. My best bet is to hole up and wait for
winter, when all the zombies either die off, or migrate to Florida. Either way I
like my chances. I’d suggest waiting a while before trying
to go to Florida.Florida is fucked up
enough already.When the zombie
apocalypse happens, that peninsula is going to go to hell a lot sooner than the
rest of the country.Good point. Honestly, I have serious doubts zombies would survive a
Canadian winter anyway. This is maybe why we never see zombie movies based
here.Weapon of choice:Against zombies, or in general?I like bows, but when push comes to shove, I’ll take a good old baseball
bat any day.

Do you have any special skills?I don’t know… I guess I’m moderately good at a lot of things. I’ve
been told I’m a fairly entertaining and compelling storyteller. After a
twenty-plus year hiatus I’m trying to pick up the guitar again. I assumed there
would be some muscle memory carryover, but apparently my muscles have developed
acute amnesia. That, or I just wasn’t as good back then as I thought I was.

Did you go to college and, if so, what for?I did two years of a business admin degree before deciding the hallowed
halls of academia were not for me. A few years later I reconsidered and
returned to college, where I studied broadcast journalism.

Any pets? If so, what are they and
what are their names?I have a fourteen-year-old German Shepherd named Eddie, whose biggest
claim to fame is being born on the morning of 9/11. In an aquarium at my office
there’s a large algae eater named Zoidberg, but he doesn’t technically belong
to me. Fish are generally pretty terrible pets, but his one redeeming quality
is that he occasionally freaks out and cruises around the tank with his big
dorsal fin in the upright position.

What is your favorite animal?I’ve rarely met a dog I didn’t like, though I tend to prefer the large
breeds. But aside from that I’d have to go with bears. They’re big, highly intelligent,
solitary, misunderstood animals. I can relate to some of that. Even though I’m
under strict orders not to do anything risky around them anymore, I’ve always
felt a connection to the ones I’ve encountered in the wild.“anymore”?
Well, I’ve often sought them out, and I’ve gotten up close and personal with a
few of them along the way. They don’t
scare me as much as they probably should. I have a healthy respect for them, but little
or no fear. My friends will sometimes
hesitantly tell me about bear sightings, ostensibly so I’ll be careful in those
areas but partly I think because they’re curious whether I’ll go looking. These days, with new parameters at play –
wife-to-be, impressionable nine-year-old – I’ve reluctantly agreed to rethink
my approach toward things that could, in theory at least, kill and eat me.Speaking of pets, any pet peeves?Bad grammar, and ad hominem arguments.They’re both extremely lazy and uncreative. It also bugs me when
people mispronounce common words, like supposedly or et cetera, as if they’ve
only ever heard them aloud and never seen them written correctly. Or make them
up entirely, like irregardless or alot.

What is your favorite quotation / motto / saying?There’s a quote that’s often attributed to Mark Twain that I rather
like. It’s the one that says “Twenty years from now you will be more
disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So
throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds
in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” I think there’s a lot of truth in
that. People shouldn’t be afraid to take risks and try the things they’re
passionate about. If you fail, well… odds are good you’re going to fail at a
bunch of stuff in life anyway. At least this way when you succeed, you’ve
succeeded at something you enjoy.

What is the best thing that ever happened to
you?Meeting my fiancée, Marsha. Hands down. It changed my life.

What is the worst thing that ever happened to
you?I had to think about this one a while. Lots of unpleasant things over
the years, but as for the absolute worst, it might have been the night I got
swarmed by seven guys who were far less drunk than I was. Ironically the only
real damage I suffered came when I slipped on the ice and broke my jaw in two
places. It sucked at the time, especially being wired shut for so long – over
Christmas, in fact - but now I kind of joke that I got into a fight with all
these guys and still had to kick my own ass.

Ever had your heart broken? Is there a story
worth telling behind your answer?For sure. I think most of us have at one time or another. I generally
keep myself fairly guarded and protected against such things, but at the same
time when you’re going into a relationship you really have to put it all on the
line, or you’re beaten before you even get started. Not much in the way of
stories here; you put yourself into certain situations, go into things with expectations
high and defenses low. Sometimes it works out great. Other times it blows up in
your face. You do what you can to learn from it and apply the lessons moving
forward.

Ever broken someone’s heart? Is there a story
worth telling behind your answer?I have, a couple of times I guess. In at least one case I did it for
the right reasons, even if it probably didn’t seem like it at the time.We’d been dating for a while, and she
was far more serious about it going forward than I was at the time. The final straw
for me was when she told me she was passing on going off to college in order to
stay home with me. There was no way I was going to let her do that, so I broke
it off. She was pretty devastated, but I understand she rebounded nicely and
got married a few years later, and remains so today. So, everything worked out
for the best in the long run.

What is the best thing you’ve ever done?I think this question and the next would probably be better answered
by those around me, whom I’ve affected in some way. But as for what I think the
best thing was, it has to be the night I proposed to Marsha. I’d been kind of
evasive and cryptic all day leading up to it and I think she might have been a
little afraid of what I was up to, like I was about to drop some nasty
bombshell on her or something. I won’t go into the squishy details, lest I ruin
my reputation as a scary badass, but I will say her reaction was one of the
best things I’ve ever seen.

What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?Generally speaking, most of the worst things I’ve done have been to
myself. Again, I’m sure others could answer this one more accurately than me.
But in my mind, the worst thing – or at least the thing I regret the most - was
probably a fight I had with an old and dear friend. It made me bitter and angry
to the point where we lost contact for many years, close to twenty of them, in
fact. We’ve since mended fences and are on great terms again, but the fact that
I held a stupid grudge for so long and wasted so many years we could have had
together makes me a little sad. Sometimes more than a little. I try not to
dwell on it.

What do you do?I work in the aquaculture field. The short version is, I work on the
design, layout and mechanics of fish hatcheries and the like. My primary focus
is water quality monitoring, and the various equipment and procedures that
entails.

How did you get started doing what you do?More or less by accident. I’d recently left college and had been
working in radio. I burned a couple of bridges in that industry and that,
coupled with my growing distaste for the reporting/newsgathering life, gave me
pause to reassess my career trajectory. An opportunity arose and, lacking a
better option at the time, I took it. I not only changed paths, I dove off the
path altogether and burst into the surrounding forest. It’s pretty far from
glamorous, but it’s paid the bills for the past nineteen years.

What is your advice to other people that want
to get started doing what you do?If we’re talking aquaculture, my advice would be: don’t. There’s an
old joke in the business: how do you make a small fortune in aquaculture? Start
with a big fortune. Seriously though, it’s a very risky industry with almost no
margin for error, in which fortunes are lost far more often than they’re made.
If we’re talking about writing, I would wholeheartedly encourage anyone to go
for it. Write as much as you can, as often as you can, about whatever strikes
your fancy. Enjoy it, it can be a wonderful and rewarding experience even if it
never earns you a dime or nobody but you ever reads a word of it.

What are some of the projects you’ve worked
on/finished in the past? Give us a little history if you will.I’ve written I don’t know how many stories, about a dozen of which
have been sold, with seven or eight published to date. I’m a little bit late to
the party; I’ve been writing since I was a kid, but later on I took an extended
hiatus and really only started taking it seriously in the last five years or
so. I decided the best way to get myself established and start carving out a
little name for myself in a timely way was to get a bunch of shorts published.
It hasn’t been all smooth sailing, but all things considered it’s gone fairly
well so far. I’ve gotten to know a number of publishers, editors and various people
in the industry, made some good friends and had a lot of great experiences.
I’ve learned an awful lot about the business in a relatively short time, and
thanks to some very kind and generous people I didn’t have to learn most of it
the hard way.
I was invited to participate in a round robin novel project about a year ago by
a fellow named J. Richard Jacobs. He’s just about seen and done it all, and has
been writing and editing longer than I’ve been alive. J, incidentally, was also
the first editor to ever buy one of my stories. We’ve developed a friendship
and worked together a few times since. When he was putting together his roster
he invited me along, and I accepted. It’s still a work in progress, but I was
happy to contribute a chapter to it.
That first story I mentioned appeared in an anthology called Twisted Tails VII.
It’s a long-running and successful series that, for me, was a huge first step
into the publishing world. It was the point at which I started to realize I
just might have enough talent and desire to find some success doing this.
Somewhere in the middle of all of this I actually got the chance to put some of
my journalistic background to work, this time in sports writing. I spent a year
writing about the New York Islanders, first for a website under the Sports
Illustrated umbrella and later for another site we pioneered called Islanders
Insight that ultimately partnered with USA Today. My resurgence was relatively
brief, but this time I left on my own terms, voluntarily, with an open door offer
to return if I so choose down the road. One of my fondest memories will always
be logging into the SI website and seeing something I wrote there on their home
page. Who knows how many people read my articles? SI is read by millions. Kind
of cool to think about. Sadly, I have serious doubts my fiction will ever reach
anywhere near that large an audience. But hey, I had my fifteen minutes. And
some closure on the whole journalism career. I’m cool with that.

What projects are you working on now?Most of my focus these days is on my first novel. It’s a paranormal
thriller with horror elements that I’m quite pleased with so far. Up until now
I’ve been focused almost entirely on short stories, so this is a whole new direction
for me.
Along with that I’ve just finished compiling a collection of short stories,
tentatively entitled Night Terrors. I’ve sent out some feelers, testing the
waters for possible placement options. It’s my first “stand-alone” project, and
I’m fairly excited about it.
Later this summer I’m collaborating with Marsha on an artist-in-residency
project. Basically we’ll be on display to the public, plying our respective
trades, answering questions and telling stories, combining writing and visual
art into what we hope will be something pretty cool.

What are you watching?Criminal Minds is one of the staples; it’s like comfort food for my
brain. I’ve recently discovered The Following, which despite some draggy
stretches I’m really enjoying.I’m
also slowly catching up on American Horror Story, which has such a cool
premise.

What are you listening to?It varies a lot from day to day. Under the right circumstances, any
number of things can strike my fancy. Puttering around the studio the other
night we dusted off an old Collective Soul disk and gave it a spin. I’m also
experiencing a bit of a Led Zeppelin resurgence lately. When I’m driving, it’s
usually set to the Lithium station on XM. Pretty nice mix of grunge and
alternative staples, a lot of which I’d all but forgotten about. Offspring,
Smashing Pumpkins, Live, that sort of thing.

What are you reading?I’ve been working my way through the Dark Tower series. I started them
back when the first couple of books were still pretty new, but took a long
break around the fourth one and for whatever reason never got back to them
until last fall. I’m just about to start into the last one, The Dark Tower.Have you ever seen Akira Kurosawa’s Seven
Samurai?Sadly, I have not. It’s on my to do list for sure. I’ve heard nothing but
good things, one of those must-see things that I, well, haven’t.You definitely should see it.Although the premise is going to seem a
little familiar.The book where the
Gunslingers are protecting a village from the Doom-Bots is lifted from Seven
Samurai.So many things to catch up on, so little time. My pop culture awareness has
diminished greatly in recent years.

Favorite author / book?Probably Michael Crichton. He had a real knack for making the most
impossible scenarios seem at least plausible, whatever the subject matter. Also
he wrote Jurassic Park, one of my all-time favorite movies, so that’s a big
plus in my book. It’s hard to narrow it down to just one favorite book, but I
guess if you were to put a gun to my head I’d have to go not with something
from the Crichton library, but The Stand. I was in my teens the first time I
read it, and it was so unlike anything I’d ever read before, both in terms of
content and magnitude.

Favorite band / song?That’s a tough one for me, since I listen to such a wide variety of stuff.
I was weaned on old twangy country music, but discovered and latched onto hard
rock/metal in my formative years. Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin begat Anthrax
and Metallica, then on to Godsmack, Pantera and Black Label Society, with a
detour into Southern rock, and most points in between. Even Elvis, Jim Reeves
and Johnny Cash find their way into my rotation. More recently I’ve been
exposed to a bunch of alternative stuff I, and probably most people, had never
heard of. It’s kind of hard to nail down where my preferences lie, even for me.
When I write I like quirky, eclectic stuff like Tori Amos or Steve Vai.

Least favorite band / song?This one’s kind of tough too, since if I don’t like a particular song
or artist, I tend not to listen to it. I could say I hate Justin Bieber, but
the truth is I’ve never really listened to him. It’s more the idea of him that
I don’t care for – the whole manufactured, doctored, sterilized and homogenized
sound that American Idol and all those type of shows have popularized. I don’t
mean to imply these people have no talent – many of them do – it’s more of an
indictment of the process by which they seek their recognition.

If you could do anything other than what you
do now, what would you do?Well again, if I could make my living by writing, I would absolutely
do that. I was recently offered an opportunity to teach writing to kids, which
also sounds pretty cool to me. While I’m not entirely convinced I’m qualified
to do that, I’m more than willing to give it a shot.

Who would you want to meet that you haven’t
met? You get three choices:
Alive. Dead. Fictional.Alive: Seth MacFarlane. I think we’re very similar in terms of humor,
both the source and how it manifests, and I’m pretty sure we’d either hit it
off incredibly well, or really dislike each other.
Dead: My great-grandfather on my dad’s side. His origins are shrouded in
mystery – he seemingly appeared out of thin air one day, no paper trail, possibly
under an assumed name – and I’d like to get the answers to a hundred questions
I have for him.
Fictional: Tony Soprano. As odd as it may sound, we share some character traits
too.

What’s the best and worst job you’ve ever had?Years ago I worked for Elections Canada briefly, as an enumeration
supervisor. Basically, I got paid a ridiculous amount of money to send all of
the people who worked under me off to take stock of who lived in every house in
the province. Theoretically it was to give them an idea of how many potential
voters there were. Whatever their motivation, it was an easy gig that paid
well.
The worst job would have to be when I was the target guy at a shooting range. I
can guess what sort of mental image that description brings to mind, and you’re
not far from right. Basically, a bunch of us huddled in a ditch behind the
targets they would shoot at. After each shot we’d have to drag the target down
with a chain lift sort of thing, take note of where the hit was, put a sticker
over the hole, and then send it back up for the next shot. Behind us was a big
metal barrier, angled toward the targets. Its purpose was to corral any stray
bullets, but this ingenious design would have deflected any errant shots
directly down into the pit, straight at us. Kind of like trench warfare, except
we were unarmed. It’s a miracle nobody was killed back there.

Are there any questions that I didn’t ask that
you wished I had asked that you would like to answer now?Despite my habit of answering direct questions honestly - sometimes
embarrassingly so – and my seemingly gregarious, outgoing style, I’m actually
quite a shy, introverted, intensely private person. I’ve come out of my shell a
little bit of late, and if you catch me in the right mood I’ll talk your ear
off well past the point where you’ve stopped caring, but it’s not uncommon for
me to go through long stretches of tight-lipped silence and one-word answers.
Some might (read: do) consider me on the moody side, which I guess is true to a
point. Maybe my biggest stumbling block is the idea of letting people get too
close, out of fear they’ll discover I’m not nearly as interesting as I may have
first appeared.
I guess that’s not really a question, or the answer to one, is it? Let’s
pretend you asked me “Joe, what are some of your insecurities most people
really don’t know about you, and probably never will, at least until they read
this interview?”

Anyone you recommend I interview that you can
put me in touch with?
Got any questions for me?If you haven’t already, you should reach out to our mutual friend Michael
Kanuckel. He’s an interesting guy with a penchant for straight-up honesty. I’d
love to see what he’d come up with in this type of interview.I’m not saying you’re a bad friend for
not knowing I already interviewed him, but I am posting the link to the
interview I did with him here, just in case you haven’t read it yet.http://youareentitledtomyopinioninterviews.blogspot.com/2014/01/interview-with-michael-kanuckel.htmlI should have known you’d have gotten to him already. And I’ve read your
interview with Jay Wilburn also, so I won’t recommend him even though I would
have otherwise.

Thanks for letting me subject you to being
interviewed!Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for subjecting me to this!

About the Interviewee:Joe Powers is a Canadian horror writer with a fondness for literary
sleight-of-hand. He loves the idea of prompting a strong emotional reaction
using no more than words and his slightly off-center imagination, and delights
in taking the reader on journeys to previously unexplored regions. He is a
member of the Horror Writers’ Association, ArtsLink NB, the Writers' Federation
of New Brunswick, the NB Authors Portal and the Short Fiction Writers' Guild,
and is active in the local arts and writing communities. His work has appeared
in several anthologies and magazines. You can follow Joe at
www.joepowersauthor.com

Do you have a nickname or what do your
friends call you?Due to my last name, everyone just calls me Coke.I can only imagine what that must be
like.So many “Coke versus Pepsi” jokes
and cocaine references.You must have
super strong eye muscles from rolling them all the time.Like, you could probably crush an aluminum
can just by looking at it.Oh yeah.I think I've heard every
variation on the joke possible, at least in English.Perhaps there are new puns in Mandarin I'm
unaware of, but that would be it.

Birthplace:Oklahoma

Current hometown:Columbia, MO

Favorite city and why?Kansas City

Birthday / Age:January 11th.34.

How would you describe yourself
physically?Tall, dark, and fat.As Meatloaf sings, “Two out of three
ain’t bad.”I think “I'd do anything for love but I won't do that” is about his
experiences on the set of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.I hear Tim Curry really got into character.

How would someone else describe you
physically?Uh, are they feeling nice?Are they?Well, are they?

The first thing people notice about you
is…My height.

Religion, if any?None.Are you superstitious? Any phobias?No superstitions.I have a type
of claustrophia.It's not small spaces,
it's not being able to leave.Being
locked in a room the size of a house will trigger it, but being in a plane
won't.I think it's because the plane is
going somewhere.

Do you smoke/drink? If so,
what? Any bad habits?I am a mostly ex-smoker.I vape now.

What do you like to do when you’re not
at work?I love mountain biking, though I haven't been out lately.
What is your zombie outbreak survival plan?Dig the guns out of attic and find a nice place in the middle of nowhere.Now everyone knows where your guns are.They know where most of them are.

Weapon of choice:AK-47.

Do you have any special skills?I'm pretty good at doing math problems in my head.

Did you go to college and, if so, what
for?Yes, got an English degree.Also law
school.

Any pets? If so, what are
they and what are their names?Three cats, Sam, Pippin, and Merry.

What is your favorite animal?I have a soft spot for black labs.

Speaking of pets, any pet peeves?Idiots who stick to their guns.

What is the best thing that ever
happened to you?I took my now wife, then girlfriend to Kauai.It was a magical week.Even having the car rental place freeze all
my money and we had to scam our way into a luau.Which was an amazing luau.

What
is the worst thing that ever happened to you?I grew up asJehovah's
Witness.It's a very silly, nasty
religion.I suspect I'd be much better
person if I hadn't spent my childhood in a cult.Weren’t the Jehovah’s Witnesses started
as a turn of the century end of times cult?
I don’t even know what book they follow.I read “The Bible” because living in a Judeo-Christian dominated culture
it seemed like a good idea to read the source material.I read the Book Of Mormon because it was
different than The Bible and that was a really weird experience.That book doesn’t make any sense at all and
I’m amazed that anyone is able to base their lives around it.I haven’t read The Koran, but it’s on my list
of books to read.The Witnesses were more or less a turn of the century end of times
cult.It's actually a descendant of the
Millerites, who were predicting the end of the world in the 1830s. You may have
heard of then in your social studies class. The Witnesses are like the second
cousin to 7th Day Adventists.Of course they don't tell you this stuff when you are in the
Witnesses.While the bible seems to have
seeped into my brain in ways I can't get past, I pretty much immediately get
bored when someone breaks out the God jabber.One of my minor problems with the Witnesses is how BORING everything
is.It's like they think that by making
everything feel like an insurance convention held in the conference room of a
Motel 8, they're proving how much they love Jesus.Because they obviously aren't there for the
fun of it.Say what you will about the
Mormons, at least they have some badass architects.All I remember about them is that they
don’t let you celebrate your birthday or Halloween.I don’t really care about my birthday, but
requiring their followers to abstain from Halloween is a definite deal-breaker.

What
is the best thing you’ve ever done?Well, I started my own law practice in a very clutch maneuver after
getting laid off.So that is probably
the most impressive thing I've ever done.

What is the worst thing you’ve ever
done?I stay up at night sometimes remembering stupid, mean things I did as a
kid.I wasn't a bully, but I had my
moments.

What do you do?I'm a lawyer.

How did you get started doing what you
do?Graduated law school.Got laid
off.Started my own practice.

What is your advice to other people that
want to get started doing what you do?Look around, find all those things that are done that way just because
they've always been done those ways.Do
them the way they should be done.

What are some of the projects you’ve
worked on/finished in the past? Give us a little history if you will.Writing wise, I have who knows how many half-finished novels, four or five
fantasy worlds, and all sorts of fragments.I have the three novels in this series in the can, and I'm about 80,000
words deep on my current project.

What projects are you working on now?The working title is Before the Fire.It's a bit of a genre bender.I like to make discovering the world part of
plot, so questions like this make me worry about spoilers.

What are you watching?Women's World Cup at the moment.I
feel a Venture Brothers marathon coming on.

What are you listening to?I love Alcest, Amesours, and Les Discrets.They've been my main playlist for a year or so now.Jimi Hendrix has been working his way back in
lately.Jimi Hendrix is such a powerful musical
influence that you can spend your whole life trying to get out from under his
shadow.Why would I want to be out of his shadow?He rules.I mean, like, if you’re trying to do your
own thing musically.Because unless
you’re some kind of crazy musical genius, nothing you do will ever hold a
candle to what he did.

What are you reading?2666 by Roberto Bolano.

Favorite author / book?Neal Stephenson.Moby Dick.I know Stephenson didn't write Moby Dick.But what if he did?If it was early Stephenson, it would be a fun whale hunting adventure.If it was later Stephenson, it would have a
thirty page dissertation on the various types of knots.So in a way, later Stephenson would be more
like Moby Dick.I'm mostly kidding.

Favorite band / song?This changes so often.Right now my
favorite band is Amesoeurs, and I'll cheat and list their whole discography as
my favorite.

Least favorite band / song?Black Eye Peas, the one where they say Mazeltov.

Who would you want to meet that you
haven’t met? You get three choices:
Alive. Dead. Fictional.Thomas Pynchon, Jan Zizka, the Joker.

Are there any questions that I didn’t
ask that you wished I had asked that you would like to answer now?Can't think of anything.

About the Interviewee: Justin Coke lives in the middle of Missouri. He enjoys mountain biking, scuba diving, Lovecraft, fishing, soccer, pizza, and good beer. He wrote Like Father, which appeared in Wicked Words Quarterly. He also has 42,769 comment karma on Reddit.

Monday, June 8, 2015

Do
you have a nickname or what do your friends call you?
Alex, Al. My girlfriend calls me Xander. And Xand. And Xanadu.

Birthplace
/ Current hometown:
Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

Favorite
city and why?
I haven’t traveled too much, so I guess I’d have to say Windsor, although as
with a lot of places you have to take the terribly bad with the good. I’d like to live in the Muskokas, where it’s
green and quiet and there’s no trace of the chemical city-stink I’ve grown so
accustomed to here.

How
would someone else describe you physically?
An Adonis-like physique, a marvel to the human eye and a testament to the
potential of the human body to be sculpted into a work of art. But more likely
“tall and lanky”.

The
first thing people notice about you is…
I honestly have no idea. My shyness maybe?

Religion,
if any?
I’m curious and hopeful. I’ll let you know what I find out on the subject.

Are
you superstitious? Any phobias?
Superstitious, yes, definitely. Phobic, not really.So, what are some of your
superstitions?Delve, damn it.Well, for one thing, I believe that there are good numbers, and that there
are very, very bad numbers. In terms of
everyday scenarios, for example, if the numbers on a digital clock display are
the latter, whether in their individual digits or as the sum of those digits,
then I have to wait until a better number takes its place before even
attempting to go to sleep.
Also, among my many weird little rituals is the following important one: the
final image in my mind before I turn out the light in any given room has to be
a positive one, whether it’s a person, a place, an object, whatever; if a
negative image is the final one I see as I shut off a light I must immediately
turn the light back on and repeat the process until I successfully envision
something good. This sometimes takes some doing.
There are more, but that might be beyond the scope of this conversation, ha ha.

Do
you smoke/drink? If so, what? Any bad habits?I
don’t smoke. I drink socially, but I’m not picky about what I drink. As for bad habits...I eat an overabundance of
cookies. I am the Cookie Monster. But there are worse vices, I guess. I could be the Cocaine Monster, for example.

What
do you like to do when you’re not at work?
Read books, watch movies, spend time in forested areas and on islands.

What
is your zombie outbreak survival plan?
Now that I know I need one, I would say to retreat to a mountainous area in the
far north of Canada, and build a fortress there which, given its altitude,
would be easier to defend against all would-be invaders, both undead and human
alike. Growing food would pose a
problem, though, now that I think about it. We could hunt mountain goats and birds? But
their populations would dwindle pretty quickly. Hmm...I need to give this some more thought...

Weapon
of choice:
Human ingenuity, second only to killer robots.

Do
you have any special skills?
I’m a pretty formidable Dungeon Master.The world needs more good Dungeon
Masters.Absolutely! At the very least it
needs more Fighting Fantasy Game Book players. Do you remember Fighting Fantasy books? I swear some of them are actually impossible
to win, but no less fun to read for it.
I don’t remember Fighting Fantasy books.But at least now I know what they are.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy

Did
you go to college and, if so, what for?
Yes, I graduated from the University of Windsor with a degree in English
Literature/Creative Writing & Psychology; I also have an Education degree
from the same school.

Any
pets?If so, what are they and what are
their names?
Yes, we have two cats, Lucy(fur) and Callie.

What
is your favorite animal?
Extinct: the Ankylosaur
Living: the turtle. But monkeys are awesome, too.

Speaking
of pets, any pet peeves?
Nepotism, and the pretentious, self-absorbed people who reap its benefits
without deserving to.

What
is your favorite quotation / motto / saying?
Ray Bradbury: “Get your work done.” Exactly!That’s great advice.I’m working on that as I type this.I fell way behind on my interview homework.Yeah, Sir Ray always was full of wisdoms.

What
is the best thing that ever happened to you?
Re-meeting the girl that would become my girlfriend over a decade after
originally meeting her. Aww...

What
is the worst thing that ever happened to you?
Having to wait through the above-mentioned decade to re-meet the girl who would
become my girlfriend. Aww...

What
is the best thing you’ve ever done?
Writing-wise, one of the coolest things I’ve ever done happened a couple of
years ago, when I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute an essay to a book
called Back To Frank Black: A Return To
Chris Carter’s Millennium, about Chris Carter’s (creator of the X-Files) Millennium television series, which was published by the amazing
Fourth Horseman Press. Millennium is one of my all-time
favourite television series, and I was incredibly honoured to have been a part
of the project. Making it even better
was the fact that Chris Carter himself wrote the book’s introduction, and
series star Lance Henriksen contributed a foreword, and writer/producer Frank
Spotnitz also contributed a foreword.
My editors sent me a picture of the actress Sarah Jane-Redmond (who played the
character Lucy Butler, about whom I wrote my essay) reading the book. That was
pretty fulfilling, to say the least.

What
is the worst thing you’ve ever done?
Years ago, I wrote for a local magazine. I was given the job of writing an
ongoing serialized fiction piece that was published on a monthly basis. The
first couple of installments went okay but then the editors started doing
hack-job edits on my submissions, omitting huge chunks of content for space constraint
issues, making very questionable changes without asking me, and lots of other
things that basically made the installments incomprehensible and un-readable. I
stopped caring, though, and kept writing what I was writing, knowing that
although what I wrote was destined to be put into the world in a much more
awful version, I at least had my original version. So ultimately what was
printed was just trash, despite the original material being better than that.
The magazine was abysmal, though, so at least the editors helped sculpt my
contributions to be a nice match for it.

How
did you get started doing what you do?
I’ve always written fiction, as far back as I can recall. In the late ‘90s I
had my first short story published, and it made me realize there were people
out there who might enjoy my writing, so I began submitting my fiction to
different editors. Before long I’d had quite a few publications under my belt.
I’ve been going strong ever since.

What
is your advice to other people that want to get started doing what you do?The
most important and obvious advice would be to write what you love, and to read
and write every day.

What
are some of the projects you’ve worked on/finished in the past? Give us a
little history if you will.
In terms of bigger projects, I had my first book, Black Sunshine, published by Fourth Horseman Press back in 2005. My
first short story collection, Experiments
At 3 Billion A.M., was published by Eibonvale Press in 2009. More recently, my fiction collection Songs For The Lost was published by
Eibonvale Press, along with its companion volume, an essay and poetry
collection entitled, Ballads To The
Burning Twins: The Complete Songs Lyrics Of The Deathray Bradburys.

What
projects are you working on now?
I recently finished work on two manuscripts – the first one is a novel
influenced heavily by magical realism; the second is a fiction collection in
much the same vein. I’m really excited
about them – they’re a lot different from my previous books. The surreal motifs are woven into the gritty,
realistic backdrop a lot more subtly.
Also, I’m working on another collection that’s a little more in line with the type
of material of Songs For The Lost -
it’s very slipstream in style and takes in influences from a lot of different
genres.
I’m also finishing up work on an expanded version of my first novel, Black Sunshine, which is tentatively
scheduled for re-issue later in the year as a collaborative release from Fourth
Horseman Press and Eibonvale Press.
Eibonvale Press is also reissuing my first fiction collection, Experiments At 3
Billion A.M. in the weeks ahead, featuring new cover artwork by David Rix, a
new foreword by author/Fourth Horseman Press editor Brian A. Dixon, and revised
text by yours truly.

I’ve also been given the great honour of editing a
forthcoming short story collection by the late, great Joel Lane, which is due
from Eibonvale Press in the near future. It’s called Scar City, and it’s a great collection, and truly an honour to work
on. I’ll be providing a foreword to the book as well, another huge honour.

I also freelance for our city newspaper.

What
are you watching?
I just finished re-watching the X-Files in its entirety, in anticipation of Fox
renewing the series. The truth is out there.

What
are you listening to?
I’ve recently rediscovered my love of Sonic Youth, so I’ve been giving their
entire catalogue lots of play.

What
are you reading?
I’m currently reading 2666 by Roberto
Bolaño, and Bill, The Galactic Hero
by Harry Harrison.

Favorite
author / book?
There are far too many to list, but a few of my favourites are Harlan Ellison,
Robert E. Howard, Ray Bradbury, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Darcey Steinke, J.G.
Ballard, Richard Matheson, Raymond Carver, and Frank Belknap Long.That’s a really decent list of authors.I’ve read extensively from six of them.Yeah, the list just goes on, and gets regularly updated. For the past few
months I’ve been obsessed with James Jones’ books, so I’d probably add some of
them to the list, like The Thin Red Line. If you asked me the same question in
a year there might be some new ones.

Favorite
band / song?
This is also very tough to narrow down to just one. If you could indulge me and let me list a top
few here as well, they would be: Iron Maiden, Sonic Youth, The Gun Club, Black
Sabbath, Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Tangerine Dream, the Stooges, the Misfits,
and the Pixies, Faith No More, among others.

Least
favorite band / song?Is
Mumford And Sons still allowed to make music?Ye gods, I hope not.Amen to that.

If
you could do anything other than what you do now, what would you do?
I’d be a forest ranger. And I’d write X-Files
and Millennium comic books and
episode screenplays in my cabin in the woods.

Who
would you want to meet that you haven’t met? You get three choices: Alive.
Dead. Fictional.
Alive: Steve Harris (bass player and chief songwriter of Iron Maiden)
Dead: Robert E. Howard (author)
Fictional: Frank Black (of Millennium)

What’s
the best and worst job you’ve ever had?
The best: I was a puppeteer for six years, and helped put on educational
children’s shows at schools, libraries, summer camps, etc., and that was
amazing.
The worst might have been when I worked as a resume writer/interview
coordinator for a couple years, and my boss revealed herself to be a demon from
the deepest bowels of Hell. I’m lucky to
have survived, though I’m a changed man.

Are
there any questions that I didn’t ask that you wished I had asked that you
would like to answer now?
I can’t think of any, but I’d be happy to answer any others you think of!

Anyone
you recommend I interview that you can put me in touch with?
David Rix – writer, artist extraordinaire, and editor at Eibonvale Press;
Douglas Thompson, prolific author and part of the Eibonvale team; Brian A.
Dixon and Adam Chamberlain, writers and editors and the masterminds of Fourth
Horseman Press; and Elizabeth J.M. Walker, author of YA fantasy novels and
short stories.If you’ll vouch for them I’ll let them
take a turn at bat.
They won’t disappoint. I can’t think of
better interview subjects with more interesting and diverse backgrounds.

Got
any questions for me?
What made you decide to start this great site? Who would you most like to
interview who you haven’t yet had the opportunity to interview?I was working on a
crowd-funded/crowd-sourced book project and I put out a press release to try to
generate some momentum behind it.It got
almost no response.I was disappointed,
and thought it was unfair, so I decided to start a blog where I would interview
anyone about anything.After some trial
and error, I developed a formula so it wouldn’t be a considerable drain on my
time and effort.As long as they’re
willing to play along, I’ll take all comers.
As for who I’d like to interview that I haven’t gotten to interview yet, I’d
like to interview some of the creative types whose work I enjoy.Henry Rollins, Bret Easton Ellis, Stephen
King, Clive Barker, David Lynch, David Cronenberg.But since I don’t work for Rolling Stone, I don’t
really have any weight to push around.Those would all be amazing interview subjects, for sure. I’m a fan of each
of their work, so hearing them talk is always enjoyable for me. They’re always
insightful and interesting conversations. Clive Barker always has something
interesting to say. He did this great and epic interview in the magazine
Amazing Heroes years ago, which confirmed in my mind how intelligent I’d always
thought he was based on reading his fiction.

Thanks
for letting me subject you to being interviewed!
Thank you for subjecting yourself to my answers!

About the Interviewee:
Alexander Zelenyj is the author of the books Songs For The Lost, Experiments
At 3 Billion A.M., Black Sunshine,
and Ballads To The Burning Twins: The
Complete Song Lyrics Of The Deathray Bradburys. His fiction and non-fiction
have been published in many different magazines and anthologies around the
world.
He lives in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, where the mothership is due to arrive in
the near future.